“Admit what?” I asked. I was genuinely curious to hear what he’d say. The first time he’d been on my doorstep, he’d been a believer. He’d thought I was his key to a quick rise in the bureau.
“Admit you’re not even a human being.”
Aha. He really believed that. I disgusted and repelled him. I had more insight into what Sam was feeling.
“I’ve been watching you, Ms. Stackhouse. I’ve been called off, but if I can tie you in to any investigation that will lead back to you, I’ll do it. You’re wrong. I’m leaving now, and I hope you—” He didn’t get a chance to finish.
“Don’t think bad things about my aunt Sookie,” Hunter said furiously. “You’re a bad man.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself, but I wished for Hunter’s own sake that he had kept his mouth shut. Lattesta turned white as a sheet.
Claude laughed. “He’s scared of you,” he told Hunter. Claude thought it was a great joke, and I had a feeling he’d known what Hunter was all along.
I thought Lattesta’s grudge might constitute a real danger to me.
“Thanks for coming to give me the good news, Special Agent Lattesta,” I said, in as mild a voice as I could manage. “You have a safe drive back to Baton Rouge, or New Orleans, or wherever you flew in.”
Lattesta was on his feet and out the door before I could say another word, and I handed Hunter to Claude and followed him. Lattesta was down the steps and at his car, fumbling around in his pocket, before he realized I was behind him. He was turning off a pocket recording device. He wheeled around to give me an angry look.
“You’d use a kid,” he said. “That’s low.”
I looked at him sharply for a minute. Then I said, “You’re worried that your little boy, who’s Hunter’s age, has autism. You’re scared this hearing you came to attend will go badly for you and maybe for Agent Weiss. You’re scared because you reacted to Claude. You’re thinking of asking to transfer into the BVA in Louisiana. You’re mad that I know people who can make you back off.”
If Lattesta could have pressed himself into the metal of the car, he would’ve. I’d been a fool because I’d been proud. I should have let him go without a word.
“I wish I could tell you who it was who put me off-limits to the FBI,” I said. “It would scare your pants off.” In for a penny, in for a pound, right? I turned and went back up the front steps and into the house. A moment later, I heard his car tear down my driveway, probably scattering my beautiful gravel as it went.
Hunter and Claude were laughing in the kitchen, and I found them blowing with straws into the dishwashing water in the sink, which still had some soap bubbles. Hunter was standing on a stool I used to reach the top shelves of the cabinets. It was an unexpectedly happy picture.
“So, Cousin, he’s gone?” Claude asked. “Good job, Hunter. I think there’s a lake monster under that water!”
Hunter blew even harder, and water drops spattered the curtains. He laughed a little too wildly.
“Okay, kids, enough,” I said. This was getting out of hand. Leave a fairy alone with a child for a few minutes, and this was what happened. I glanced at the clock. Thanks to Hunter’s early wake-up call, it was only nine. I didn’t expect Remy to come to collect Hunter until late afternoon.
“Let’s go to the park, Hunter.”
Claude looked disappointed that I’d stopped their fun, but Hunter was game to go somewhere. I grabbed my softball mitt and a ball and retied Hunter’s sneakers.
“Am I invited, too?” Claude said, sounding a little miffed.
I was taken by surprise. “Sure, you can come,” I said. “That would be great. Maybe you should take your own car, since I don’t know what we’ll be doing afterward.” My self-absorbed cousin genuinely enjoyed being with Hunter. I would never have anticipated this reaction—and truthfully, I don’t think he had anticipated it, either. Claude followed me in his Impala as I drove to the park.
I went to Magnolia Creek Park, which stretched on either side of the creek. It was prettier than the little park close to the elementary school. The park wasn’t much, of course, since Bon Temps is not exactly a wealthy little town, but it had the standard playground equipment, a quarter-mile walking track, and plenty of open area, picnic tables, and trees. Hunter attacked the jungle gym as if he’d never seen one before, and maybe he hadn’t. Red Ditch is smaller and poorer than Bon Temps.
I found that Hunter could climb like a monkey. Claude was ready to steady him at every move. Hunter would’ve found that annoying if I’d done it. I wasn’t sure why that should be, but I knew it to be true.
A car pulled up as I enticed Hunter down from the jungle gym to play ball. Tara got out and came over to see what we were doing.
“Who’s your friend, Sookie?” she called.
The tight top she was wearing made Tara look a little bigger than she had when she’d come into the bar to eat lunch. She was wearing some pre-pregnancy shorts scooted down under her belly. I knew extra money wasn’t plentiful in the du Rone/Thornton household these days, but I hoped Tara could find money in the budget to get some real maternity clothes before too long. Unfortunately, her clothing store, Tara’s Togs, didn’t carry maternity stuff.
“This is my cousin Hunter,” I said. “Hunter, this is my friend Tara.” Claude, who had been swinging on the swing set, chose that moment to leap off and bound over to where we stood. “Tara, this is my cousin Claude.”
Now, Tara had known me all her life, and she knew all the members of my family. I gave her high points for absorbing this introduction and giving Hunter a friendly smile, which she then extended to Claude. She must have recognized him—she’d seen him in action. But she never blinked an eye.
“How many months are you?” Claude asked.
“A little more than three months away from delivery,” Tara said, and sighed. I guess Tara had gotten used to relative strangers asking her personal questions. She’d told me before that all conversational bars were removed when you were pregnant. “People will ask you anything,” she’d said. “And the women’ll tell you labor and delivery stories that make your hair curl.”
“Do you want to know what you’re having?” Claude asked.
That was way out of bounds. “Claude,” I said reprovingly. “That’s too personal.” Fairies just didn’t have the same concept of personal information or personal space that humans did.
“I apologize,” my cousin said, very insincerely. “I thought you might enjoy knowing before you buy their clothes. You color-code babies, I believe.”
“Sure,” Tara said abruptly. “What sex is the baby?”
“Both,” he said with a smile. “You’re having twins, a boy and a girl.”
“My doctor’s heard only one heartbeat,” she said, trying to be gentle about telling him he was wrong.
“Then your doctor is an idiot,” Claude said cheerfully. “You have two babies, alive and well.”
Tara obviously didn’t know what to make of this. “I’ll get him to look harder next time I go in,” she said. “And I’ll tell Sookie to let you know what he says.”
Fortunately, Hunter had mostly ignored this conversation. He had just learned how to throw the softball up in the air and catch it, and he was distracted by the effort to put my mitt on his little hand. “Did you play baseball, Aunt Sookie?” he asked.
“Softball,” I said. “You bet I did. I played right field. That means I stood way out in the field and waited to see if the girl batting would hit the ball out my way. Then I’d catch it, and I’d throw it in to the pitcher, or whichever player needed it most.”
“Your aunt Sookie was the best right fielder in the history of the Lady Falcons,” Tara said, squatting down to talk to Hunter eye to eye.